Using the Immune System to Fight Cancer

 

 

In 1982, Dr. Richard Edelson and his team were looking for a treatment for cutaneous T-cell lymphoma (CTCL), a cancer caused by the uncontrolled growth of white blood cells.Patients in the final stage of CTCL had a short life expectancy and there was little he could do to relieve their extremely inflamed and painful skin.

He decided to try using a powerful drug that was activated by light to stop the growth of cancer cells. To do this, he devised a method of bringing the blood outside the body, where it was mixed with the drug and exposed to light before being returned to the patient. He started with one patient who had not responded to high-dose chemotherapy. After just three treatments, the results surprised everyone: the patient was in complete remission! His skin was clear and there were no malignant cells detected in his blood.

Since then, photopheresis has been used around the world about 400,000 times to treat CTCL, graft-versus-host-disease and rejection following heart transplants.